UNDER THE LAMP

I had given a glass ball to a young lady, who believed that she could play the “willing game” successfully without touching the person “willed,” and when the person did not even know that “willing” was going on.  This lady, Miss Baillie, had scarcely any success with the ball.  She lent it to Miss Leslie, who saw a large, square, old-fashioned red sofa covered with muslin, which she found in the next country house she visited.  Miss Baillie’s brother, a young athlete (at short odds for the amateur golf championship), laughed at these experiments, took the ball into the study, and came back looking “gey gash”.  He admitted that he had seen a vision, somebody he knew “under a lamp”.  He would discover during the week whether he saw right or not.  This was at 5.30 on a Sunday afternoon.  On Tuesday, Mr. Baillie was at a dance in a town some forty miles from his home, and met a Miss Preston.  “On Sunday,” he said, “about half-past five you were sitting under a standard lamp in a dress I never saw you wear, a blue blouse with lace over the shoulders, pouring out tea for a man in blue serge, whose back was towards me, so that I only saw the tip of his moustache.”

“Why, the blinds must have been up,” said Miss Preston.

“I was at Dulby,” said Mr. Baillie, as he undeniably was. {60a}

This is not a difficult exercise in belief.  Miss Preston was not unlikely to be at tea at tea-time.

Nor is the following very hard.

THE COW WITH THE BELL

I had given a glass ball to the wife of a friend, whose visions proved so startling and on one occasion so unholy that she ceased to make experiments.  One day my friend’s secretary, a young student and golfer, took up the ball.

“I see a field I know very well,” he said, “but there is a cow in it that I never saw; brown, with white markings, and, this is odd in Scotland, she has a bell hanging from her neck.  I’ll go and look at the field.”

He went and found the cow as described, bell and all. {60b}

In the spring of 1897 I gave a glass ball to a young lady, previously a stranger to me, who was entirely unacquainted with crystal gazing, even by report.  She had, however, not infrequent experience of spontaneous visions, which were fulfilled, including a vision of the Derby (Persimmon’s year), which enriched her friends.  In using the ball she, time after time, succeeded in seeing and correctly describing persons and places familiar to people for whom she “scried,” but totally strange to herself.  In one case she added a detail quite unknown to the person who consulted her, but which was verified on inquiry.  These experiments will probably be published elsewhere.  Four people, out of the very small number who tried on these occasions, saw fancy pictures in the ball:  two were young ladies, one a man,